New Year's Eve-Eve sunset

Pretty sunset!

Better than new!

Michael got a new bike for Christmas. His favorite color is green, the bike was yellow, red, and black. Brendon took it all apart and I took the parts to work and used the sand blaster to remove the old paint. Brendon used his autobody repair skills and put an automotive quality paint job on it. Looks better that new don't you think?

Christmas jammies!

Michael in his new Christmas jammies!

News Article

The local paper included an article about Jared. Go to:
http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/12/24/3616174/grapevine-looks-to-stand-tall.html
and read all about Jared. Mom and Dad were able to watch him play in four games. Grapvine won two and lost two. Jared played well. He even dunked it especially for Grandma and Grandpa. I'll post the picture later.

Christmas Eve Revelry at the Randalls'

The theme for our Christmas Eve festivities this year was Christmas around the world. Jeff's parents were with us as well as his brother Mark and his family. We ate dishes from different countries: Poutine from Canada, Tamales from Mexico, Fish sticks (representing the seven different kinds of fish they eat in Italy), and some American salads. For our program we talked about customs in the different countries some of us had either lived in or descended from. English Christmas Pudding was my subject. And we finished the evening with a buche de Noel from France. Our version was decorated with Legos. Here are a few pictures.

Tamsyn and Megyn were the Lego builders and decorators of the cake.

All of the characters represented different countries, except for the skeleton who stood in for our ancestors. Notice flags from different countries, too.

Famous "L" tree

Kennedy and Tristan on the "L" tree

Jack

I love this picture of Jack tossing leaves. Makes you feel like a kid again

Kennedy

Kennedy with her parents at the church

Kennedy's testimony

Christi asked Kennedy to go to her room and write her testimony on a piece of paper. She was supposed to display it on a table at her baptism. She wrote it without any adult supervision and she did a pretty good job.

Kennedy

Kennedy

A close-up of Kennedy

Grandma's Christmas Cake

A few days ago, something got me thinking about a Christmas cake that Grandma used to make. Does anyone else remember the cake with orange slices (the gum drop kind) in it? I did a bit of digging and found this recipe of Grandma's. It doesn't have the orange slices listed in the original recipe, but I think this was the cake she put them in. I made it for Mom and Dad as part of their Christmas present and asked them to tell me if it was as good as I remembered. They liked it, and so I'm passing it on to the rest of you. I've added a few directions for the icing that Grandma didn't have.

Note: I substitued the same amount of orange slices snipped into pieces for the candied fruit.

Christmas Cake
1 8-oz pkg cream cheese
1 cup margarine (I suppose butter could also be used)
1-1/2 tsp vanilla
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1-1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2-1/4 cups flour
1 cup mixed candied fruit, ground (orange slices, snipped)
1/2 cup pecans, chopped
Blend cream cheese, margarine, sugar and vanilla. Beat in eggs one at a time. Sift dry ingredients and beat into creamed mixture. Add fruit and nuts and mix well. Bake in a well-greased tube or Bundt pan at 325 degrees for 1 hours. Let cool. Pipe on icing.

Icing
2 cups powdered sugar
2 Tbsp margarine, softened
1-2 Tbsp cream
1/2 tsp almond extract
Beat together until smooth. Fill a gallon ziplock bag with icing, cut off a bit of the corner, and pipe icing over cake. Sprinkle with colored sugar, if desired.

Kennedy

This was taken the day Kennedy was baptized. Doesn't she look like a little angel?

Maxton

I took pictures of Maxton Moffett yesterday, one week old. His mother is a daughter of Max and Kathy Anderson, if that means anything to you. Her oldest sister married Jeremy Bradshaw. Anyway, I was looking around for something that looked Christmasy and saw my wreath hanging on the wall. I took it down and noted that the center hole was just about the right size to hold the big white bowl that I have photographed many kids with. Voila! Turned out cute so I though I would post it.

Hardware

Jared, his teammates and hardware pose for victory celebration

Recap

Ron and Marilee were able to see some good games. We just got back from the best game of the tournament. After going two wins and one loss, Grapvine played for the "Bronze Championship". The opposing team was solid and the game was hard fought. The other team had their hands full trying to contain Jared. He scored 19 points and led his team to victory. Grapevine went 3 and 1 for the tournament. Jared scored 19 points in two games and 13 points in two games. We have enjoyed sitting next to Ron and Marilee as we cheered our team on to victory. Sadly, Ron and Marilee leave first thing tomorrow morning. We have had a good visit. Tonight, we are going out on the town. We are going to "Babes" for dinner (not what you think), then we are going to go see Rachel's apartment. These past few days have gone by way too fast.

RM&CS (Ron, Marilee and Cowboys Stadium)

Shout out to Lyssa and Taylor...wishing you were here!

Christmas surprise

Siennah

Siennah

Three Kelseys

Families can be together forever

Tyff, Jason & Siennah

Siennah

Siennah

Siennah has grown up a lot since I last took her pictures. Instead of the little toddler who wouldn't look at the camera she has evolved to a poser. She came up with her own poses and was having a ball posing for G Grandma.

Jack

Mother-Daughter

Christi and her three cute kids

Christi and her three kids in front of the tree they picked out at the Christmas tree farm.

Kelsey family

I took this picture at the Christmas tree farm when we picked out their tree.

The Bench

I took a picture of the bench with the finish on it and installed at the church. A very sad side note to this story, the Lady at work whose mom died that I built the bench for lost her husband the day before thanksgiving. It was very sudden and unexpected. He was in his early 40's.

Pumpkin Pie Shakes and Blueberry Muffins

I don't know about all of you but here we are all getting fat on pumpkin pie! We made about three too many pies for Thanksgiving and I think we will be eating pie all week. What a shame, huh?

Speaking of pie, I found this pumpkin pie milkshake recipe on another blog. We tried it tonight with some leftover pie and it was really good--and I don't even like pumpkin pie!

We had Kennedy's baptism yesterday. It was such a nice service. We had two other kids from our get baptized the same day. That is a record for our ward! Anyway, the three of us moms planned the program, decorations, refreshments, etc. One of my jobs was to bring muffins. I started about two weeks before since I knew it was going to get busy. I put them in the freezer as I finished each batch. I made three different kinds: Pumpkin Apple, Banana Chocolate Chip and these Blueberry. I had the blueberry recipe for a long time but hadn't made them in a while. I remembered they were good but I didn't have any lemon extract on hand so I tried coconut and it was really good! I thought I would share if you are interested in a good blueberry muffin recipe.

Blueberry Muffins

2 3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
12 TBS butter, melted
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
1 TBS vanilla
1 1/2 tsp lemon or coconut extract
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Topping
3/4 cup oatmeal
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
4 Tbs melted butter

Blend flour, sugars, soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside. Blend together butter, buttermilk, eggs and extracts. Add to flour mixture and mix together. Add blueberries. Do not over-mix. Mix topping ingredients. Fill lined or greased muffin tins with batter and top with topping mixture. Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes.
*Batter can be frozen before or after being baked.

Be Loyal

We had our Young Women in Excellence event last night. The girls were asked to help us interpret the theme: "Be Loyal to the Royal Within You," by either performing in a play, singing in a group song, or doing some art work. Here is Megyn's contribution to the art gallery. The model in the photo is our next door neighbor and Megyn's good friend, Ashlynn. Grandma Mary helped Megyn with the photoshopping.

Basketball Kickoff

Last Saturday was the basketball kick-off dinner for Grapevine High. As part of the festivities, we had a father/son basketball game. Jared and I got tip-off duties. As expected, he cleanly tipped the ball to his teammate. Jared set up on the low post. He unexpectedly ran out about five paces, so I followed him. As he received a pass, I felt an immovable force on my back. Jared made his move to the basket and the screen rendered me powerless to counter. I could only watch as Jared threw down a two handed crowd pleasing, head turning power dunk. Later in the game, I countered with my scoop move. The footwork was flawless, the scoop was perfection, the ball somehow bounced harmlessly off the rim for a miss. Yes, my game has seen better days. I somewhat made up for it by making a nice mid-range "jump" shot. The varsity thought they won, but actually the dads did because there weren't any injuries.

Jan and David

Jan and David

Here's our newleyweds and they are pretty happy.

In Memory of

A friend at work had her mother pass away a few months ago. Her Dad came up with an idea to do a tribute to her and others that have passed on. They approached me about building a bench that they could put outside at their church. I had mom round up some pictures of a bench that I had built several years ago for Coleen Bradshaw and showed them the pictures. They liked the bench and I scrambled to figure out measurements and actually found a rough sketch of the one I did for Coleen. They wanted to have a cross (Not LDS) in the backrest. It is made of redwood and will be very pretty with the clear polyurethane on it. Here is what I came up with. I will take another picture with the finish and with it in place. I decided to donate my labor for this tribute.

Yellow tree

I was asked by the RS to take pictures of some of the houses in our ward so they could play a game at the Christmas party called "Guess whose house this is?" As I was doing this I saw a beautiful tree all decked out in Mother Nature's fall colors so I snapped a picture. I had it enlarged & presented it to the owner of the tree who happens to be my visiting teach partner, Ina Briggs. She loved it.

Happy Halloween 2011 or Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Back and forth we went, trying to agree on a costume for the ward trunk or treat. I wanted to be a jailbird and have Chris dress up as a police officer. Chris wanted to be Lawrence of Arabia but we couldn't think of a matching costume for me. I countered with Knight in Shining Armor and Damsel in Distress. No good.

Then we went to the beach. Then it rained. Then we went to Walmart and bought a few movies to watch while it rained. Then we agreed on this:

I know Mary Poppins has dark hair and I don't exactly look like her but I looked like her enough that people knew who I was, even without Burt the chimney sweep standing next to me.We had a great time at the ward trunk or treat. We laughed when we saw our friend dressed like the bird lady from Mary Poppins. We just had to get our picture taken together!

Beach Trip-Take 4

This was our fourth annual trip to the beach. We had a good time but we missed our company! It was windy this time and the ocean waves were really choppy. We didn't get in the water much this time. In fact, I didn't even put my swim suit on. We did do some fun things though. This time we visited Cape Lookout Lighthouse. That is something we have never done before. Just off of Cape Lookout is where Blackbeard's ship "Queen Anne's Revenge" sunk. That is only one of some 2000 recorded shipwrecks along the outer banks.

We visited the aquarium and saw a few little shows. The kids got to touch a turtle and an alligator. My favorite thing was that I just got to relax. I read two whole books while we were there. That must be a record. I don't get time to read like that anymore. Here are a few pictures from our trip.

Cape Lookout Lighthouse

You can see in this picture how the choppy waves leave kind of a ledge in the sand. This hasn't been there in years before.

This is Tristan driving the ferry from Cape Lookout. It started off as blue skies that day. We toured the area and went out to the beach. In the distance we watched as an ominous storm approached. We hurried to the dock and Captain Jack was already on his way to pick us up. He hurried us back to Harker's Island where our van was parked. It was kind of scary being out on the water and seeing the lightning flash.

Beach Trip-Take 4 Cont.

Chris bought a boogie board and Kennedy assumed possession of it. She made a little friend who was staying on the other side of our beach house. They spent a lot of time out in the water catching little waves.
This was Jack's favorite thing of the whole trip--riding on the "speed boat" (our ferry). He wouldn't go near the water otherwise.

We brought some kites our neighbors got us for Christmas but we were unsuccessful at flying them. I did manage to trip over a garbage can and cut my thumb, however.

Conference Weekend-Bridge to Terabithia

On Conference weekend we usually go to Duke Gardens between sessions but this time we decided to go on a little hike. We like this trail that is really close to our house. It was a beautiful day and we really enjoyed our walk. There is a little place on this trail with a bridge and a tree that has fallen across the creek. There are exposed tree roots on the bank and our kids love to play there. It reminds me of the book "Bridge to Terabithia". It really is a magical place. Here are a few pictures but it doesn't do the place justice!